Photos unable to move/resize manually added face

I've been using Photos since iPhoto. I'm currently using 3.0 on High Sierra and have over 4,000 photos in an iCloud library.

I recently realised that when you add a face manually, you are meant to be able to resize and move the circle to identify the person. This isn't working for me and the circle is locked in its default position. When I try and drag the small dot on the circle (or anywhere), the photo behind is dragged instead of the circle.

I experienced this on 2 different machines with the same iCloud library (MacBook Pro and Mac Mini). I've read that other people experiencing this problem fixed it rebooting or reopening or repairing the library. I've tried them all, but nothing fixes it and the feature is broken.

Posted on Feb 24, 2018 4:03 AM

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,525 points

Posted on Feb 24, 2018 7:28 AM

Does it work, if you add a new face somewhere? Is it only broken for faces you added some time ago?

There is one more thing you may want to check.If the problem occurs for each and every manually added photo, try to remove the Photos preferences.

To delete the Photos preferences files:

Quit Photos, if it is running.
Open your user library in your home folder.

Delete the complete folder ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/ and restart the Mac, then try again.Your user library may still be hidden.

To reveal the hidden User Library:
- Bring the Finder forward by clicking on the Desktop or the Finder icon in the Dock.
- Select your user/home folder (with the house icon in the Finder sidebar)
- With that Finder window as the front window, press the key combination ⌘J to bring up the View options.
- In the View options panel enable ’Show Library Folder’. That will make your user library folder visible in your Home folder, if it is still hidden.
- Open your Home folder, then the Library folder, then Containers.
Move the complete folder ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos to your desktop. Move the entire folder, not just the contents.
While you are about it, delete also ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Photos.plist

Restart the Mac and try again.

After you deleted the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/ and preferences, Photos will not remember the location of the library and the preferences you set. You will have to set them again.

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Photos unable to move/resize manually added face

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